HOW DO I CREATE TOOTHBRUSH BRISTLES?

Aaron Thomas, Kent

On numerous occasions, I have witnessed many students panic at the mere mention of fibre and hair creation. They associate the term with painstaking tweaking, hours of rendering, crashing software and generally a really bad time. A lot of them decide to replace fibres with planes or actual geometry for simple renders, only so they do not even have to open the Fibermesh menu. My general advice in that case is: start small, take little steps, get to know and learn the tools. Choose a simple project that will allow you to dip your toes in the topic.

Probably one of the easiest models to start with would be a toothbrush. It does not require a lot of fibres, so the render time is minimal. The tools to set them up are very basic, but are enough to figure out which sliders control what action. It is a perfect starting point if you are really unsure how to use Fibermesh at all.

You will need a basic toothbrush model to work with, to use as base/root for the fibres, as Zbrush requires a base mesh to be able to project the fibres on to. Bring up the object’s subdivision level to be able to mask out the areas with better precision. Now, let’s take a look at creating super easy bristles for an electric toothbrush.